PP Arnold remembers life in the Ike & Tina Turner Revue aged 17

Pat “PP” Arnold was hired as an Ikette by Ike & Tina’s Revue in 1965 and set off a 2,000 mile tour of America, coming to London a year later to support the Rolling Stones. Offered a record deal by Andrew Oldham, she lived in England for many years becoming “the First Lady Of Immediate” with a wide circle of friends and collaborators including the Small Faces, Cat Stevens, Hendrix, Rod Stewart, Nick Drake and the Bee Gees, all recorded in her memoir 'Soul Survivor'. Here she looks back at:-

… the rigours of the Ike & Tina tours where she was once fined $50 for crying onstage.

… the contrast between “the Chiltin’ Circuit and the Albert Hall.

... supporting the Stones in ’66 and her romance with Mick Jagger “who wanted to walk and talk like a black man”. She taught him how to do the Pony and the Mashed Potato.

… the success of The First Cut Is The Deepest.  

… her unique American take on the Swinging London of the mid-‘60s and quaint English expressions like “taking the piss”, and how an “unsophisticated” girl from the Watts district of Los Angeles saw the bohemian world (eg Chelsea restaurants where you got three sets of cutlery).

… her time with “my brothers” the Small Faces who were “a lot more ghetto than the Stones”.

… and a mention of recent collaborations with Paul Weller and Ocean Colour Scene.

Order Soul Survivor here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Soul-Survivor-Autobiography-P-P-Arnold/dp/1788705785

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